by Xavier Neal
“Mike.” I greet my dad's best friend with a nod.
He tips his beer at me and then has another swig.
My father continues, “Where were you tonight?”
With a heavy sigh I clench my fists tighter in my pockets. I don't want to play this game. I don't want to do this again. Sometimes I think he pushes me to see if I'll push back, to see if I'll go down swinging, or even contemplate not letting his abuse land on my face. But he's my father. What else am I supposed to do?
Hopeful he asks, “Strip club?”
“You know I was with Presley.”
“Ah.” He points at me with the beer bottle. “Of course you were. Always are. You two are inseparable…”
“Inseparable,” Mike echoes.
“Okay…” my voice trails off. “I love her. What’s the big deal?”
In a mocking tone he says, “You don't know what the big deal is?” He elbows Mike in the side. “He doesn't know what the big deal is?” Mike chuckles and shakes his head. Dad looks back at me and obnoxiously repeats, “You don't know what the big deal is?” I blink. I don't give them the satisfaction of seeing how his words rattle the ground beneath me. “Son, the big deal is there are millions of fish in the pool.”
This isn't going to end well. “Okay…”
“You need to start dipping your fishing pole in other scuba tanks.” His misspoken metaphor makes me roll my eyes. “Hey! Don't roll your eyes at me!”
I surrender my hands. While he doesn't typically put his hands on me, the beer in his system messes with his restraint. Sober or inebriated, verbal assaults are always in season, but his hands only come out for assistance after beers nine and ten.
“What I’m saying is your 16 years old-”
“18 years old-”
“18 goddamn years old! You know what I was doing at 18?”
Of course I knew the frat tales he's passed down to my older brother who followed in his steps, but managed not to lose his heart to the devil. Pretty sure my father sold his before he was old enough to legally drink.
“Fucking girls in the back of limos. Fucking girls in bar bathrooms. Fucking sorority girls for sport two at a time. Are you fucking your girlfriend?” Definitely the influential speech I need after telling my girlfriend I'm willing to wait. Oh wait. No, it's not. My silence seems to upset him. “You're not, are you? Fucking pathetic.”
A hard exhale comes from me, but I stay frozen. I don't feel pathetic. I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong waiting for Pres. It's not like I'm a virgin. I started boning girls when I was thirteen. Sex with my sister's best friend while she slept in the room beside us. I've had my fair share of pussy before Presley, so it isn't a giant mystery what the big deal about sex is. I just so happen to like what she has to offer more.
“You're too young to be this fucking attached to one girl. Making plans like running away to college together. Moving in together.”
Unsure of how he knows all this, I press my lips together admitting nothing. “Marriage...you really think you're gonna marry this chick? Ha!”
“Marriage?” Mike sarcastically laughs. “That's what you want kid? I got my old lady griping at me in and out every day about the trash. How I don't make enough for what she wants to spend. How I'm not 'as romantic as I used to be' or some horse shit.”
My dad mumbles, “Marcy says that bullshit to me all the time.”
“All that bitching and moaning and I ain’t even got kids.”
Dad stares down at the ground, regret flushing his cheeks. Or maybe that's the alcohol. “It's so much fucking worse with kids.”
Mike shakes his head at me. “This ain’t life. It's a prison. An expensive ass prison.”
“Very,” my father concurs looking back at me. “Do you have any idea how much you three cost? How much your mother costs? School. College. Graduations. Vacations. That shit just never ends.”
In an even tone, I ask, “If it’s so terrible then why’d you do it?”
“Trapped!” he loudly protests. Suddenly he slips his voice down to a whisper and drapes an arm around me. “See what they do is they get you while you’re young…young and dumb-”
“And full of cum,” Mike adds.
Dad laughs and nods in agreement. “They get you young enough to think life is all about love and roses. Sunshine and sex, but really they’re laying down the ground work for the day they tell you they’re knocked up and all you can do is marry them because you’re an 'honorable man'…We’re honorable men in this family.”
Obviously. However, I feel maybe this conversation should be steered towards what honorable means? And who exactly is he honoring? Mom by staying in a miserable, loveless marriage? His children by forcing us to choke down bullshit rants like this?
What sucks is now, now I feel like there's an invisible noose around my neck, tightening by the breath. He's not wrong. I pictured marriage with Pres some day being filled with morning blow jobs and bagels. Movie marathons and making love in the middle of the day or after a hard day at the office or whatever it is I end up doing. I wasn't thinking dollar signs and diapers. Bills and bill collectors.
Nervous, I question, “Is that how you really feel?”
“Look…don’t make the same mistakes we did.” Dad says in a stern voice. “Presley’s a nice girl. Smart. Loyal.”
My face unconsciously twitches a smirk.
“Dump her. She’ll come back. You two can get back together way in the future. Cut her loose now and live a little.”
“Fuck that,” Mike laughs. “Live a lot.”
My eyes stare deep into my father’s reading a pain I never have before. He's a grade A asshole. I've seen disgust in his eyes for me since I was old enough to crawl. I've seen the disappointment and shame that comes at social functions or family gatherings. Disgrace for me being the derelict he just knew I would be when I came out of the womb. All of that and I've never once saw an honest, heartfelt pain like the one I'm seeing now. I fold my arms and search for light in the darkness of the alcohol that has consumed him. That has broken the dam of emotions. I can't become him. I don't want to become this.
“That was the dumbest fucking advice he’s ever given me.” I let the candy cigarette shake between my lips as I tug at my brown hair. My eyes are still planted on the ground. “What kind of father says that to his son? What kind of father tells his son to give up the only thing that makes him happy in his life? What kind of father dumps his own emotional bitterness for his sheer existence on his very impressionable teenage son? The one you never tried to connect with before that moment? The one who took that sliver in time as your way of trying to build a bond he swore would never be born. What kind of father destroys his son's life in less than ten minutes?”
“You gave her up.” Doc states.
I ash the cigarette on the floor and mumble, “Obviously.”
“Had you taken advice before?”
For a brief moment I shut my eyes, cigarette rolling around my fingertips. Honesty bubbles in the back of my throat, burning my lymph nodes on the way up. Quietly I admit, “Not really.”
“Why start?”
“Because I was afraid he was right,” I whisper bringing the candy back to my lips. Letting it sit on them for a second I tug tighter on my hair determined to rip the anxiety of admission of guilt out of me. To tug away the pain from the constant 'what if' hell I live in. That I've created. To tug away the terror that comes from living here in this desolate dungeon of my mind where all other thoughts outside of the well woven 'what ifs' have deserted me. “Because for just a brief moment in time, I wanted to feel like he gave a fuck about me....”
Doc stays silent. The surprise lifts my head. He's staring down at me with his coal eyes, not judging, but almost understanding. I guess we all have daddy issues. “It is a father's responsibility to guide his son towards greatness.”
“Mine didn't.”
“You blame him.”
Yanking the cigarette off my lips, I snap, “O
f course I fucking blame him.” A small jeer comes out of me. “Had he not sold me the bull-”
“No.” Doc interrupts. “You bought into it. You made that choice. Start taking responsibilities for the actions you've committed. Both good and bad. Life isn't about what happens to us, Ryder. It's about the actions we take and decisions we make. What we choose each step of the way.”
His hippie mumbo jumbo shoves the cigarette back in my mouth and releases my hand from my sore skull. Whatever. I don't need this bullshit. I should've known better than to talk to him. What the fuck does he know about choices? Of course he would judge me. I'll add that to the list of things I hate.
“He has his own burdens that will haunt him,” Doc's perspective should move my eyes back to his, but they don't. As far as I'm concerned this conversation is over. “You made the choice because you wanted a father. You wanted to finally be more than he ever thought you could. To connect with him. You wanted what every wayward child ever has. To feel loved. To feel wanted.”
My head falls forward. The candy stick trembles on my bottom lip.
“However, like many things in the world, we believe in order to have something we truly want, we must sacrifice something else. For you. It was Presley.”
Hearing her name crushes my voice box at the same time it forces my mind to expel the words, “She was my life.” The declaration that I wish could stop there helplessly continues, “She was the only person who really fucking mattered. She held me when they wouldn’t. She helped build me up when they tore me down. When my own blood blamed me she exonerated me. Every time. Black sheep to them, shining star to her. She treasured me and I…” I shake my head, the racing of my heart so loud, I begin to rock in hopes of soothing the insatiable sorrow. “I broke her.” A choked sob comes out. “I fucking broke her....”
Doc doesn't comment. Doesn't add text book lines. For some reason his silence makes it worse. Tears begin to gather at the corners of my eyes, gluing them shut. For years I've buried the facts about what happened. The things I should've never did or said. The missed kisses and touches. The shameful secrets, that when I play back the endless list of 'what ifs' my mind skips over, because I don't ever want to admit the apprehension that comes from truth. The fact that the monster I was then, I still am now, just in older skin.
Presley wasn't super model gorgeous. She wasn't even girl next door cute. She was this odd combination that didn't make any sense, but screamed astounding. She was short but curvy. Her legs were long and her torso was tiny. Top heavy with just enough ass for my hands to palm. Soft brown skin, glowing chestnut eyes that even the coldest of hearts were mesmerized by. Glasses because she was blind as a bat, but had the hearing of an owl. She was a strangely pasted perfection.
“It was like I was a homeless man thrown out of the shelter, wandering around the streets for days, moments away from his last breath, dying for a meal, hot or cold, it didn't matter. I just needed something to fill my empty stomach. Something to fill the burning resentment that I’m still a man worth feeding. She was that meal. She was what revived me, what kept me living, what kept light in my eyes. It was like being a kid in the poor neighborhood at Christmas knowing the only gift I’m going to get is the warm bed I’m sleeping in and the cold cereal out of the box for breakfast the next morning and then being surprised with a present wrapped in shiny red paper with a big white bow and a gift tag addressed just to me. Like knowing someone took the extra time, worked the extra shift or job, just for me. That’s what her love was like. That’s what being in love with her was like, it was like…knowing there was God. Walking proof that it doesn’t matter how much of a fuck up you are, good things happen to everyone.” The back of my head hits the wall. “How could I not be addicted to that?”
“When you left her...”
“I just think we need to see other people. You know, test the waters.”
“Test the waters?” She's not buying it any better than I'm selling it.
“Look Presley, we’re young and who knows what's ahead. This was probably just a little dumb high school romance that lasted too long. I wanna be a free man. Try different things before I go to college.”
“I thought the plan was to go together.”
“You believed me?” My voice tries not to waiver. “I said what I thought you needed to hear. No dude wants to think about living together, or marriage, right now.” Before she has a chance to call me out I add, “Besides you never really let me be myself.”
The accusations strikes fear on her face that she wasn’t the perfect girlfriend when she was. She is. Every last bit of her. I can't believe I'm doing this.
“You lied.”
“Like a dummy with my father's hand up my ass.” The candy cigarette falls to the floor. “None of it made sense to me. None of it sounded like me, but there I was, saying every word I had rehearsed in the mirror.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “That was the first time I ever had a cigarette. There was a pack in my glove compartment I was hiding for a friend. I'll never forget that. I was a few blocks down the road from her house when I pulled over. I beat the fuck out of my steering wheel. Shouted. Screamed. Almost turned around to try to undo what I could feel in my bones was wrong. Instead, I reached in and pulled one out, stuck it in my mouth, and lit it. No fucking clue what I was doing. Shaky as shit. All I knew was I had heard how cigs could calm the nerves, so fuck it why not try. God, it was awful. The taste. The smell. But the choking on the smoke itself, the suffocation, the scolding burns on my lungs, all that relieved the pain that was wreaking havoc on my senses just long enough for me to take a breath.” My foot stomps on the fake imitation to put it out like I would the real thing. “It was the first drug I used to numb the pain.”
Doc nods. He doesn't write a note. Doesn't chime in his thoughts. He just stares with the blackness of his soul until I stand, take a long needed deep breath, and walk out without looking back.
Presley
Theory 1: Love is An Addiction.
I don't believe in perfection. I don't believe life is about being perfect. I think it's about making the most of what you have with what you were given. The aces as much as the two of hearts. All cards in your deck matter in different ways. I do, however, believe that once you've played that hand, it's time to move on. There's nothing healthy from dwelling on the past. Reliving it. Re-imagining the depths of the butterfly effect. No. That's a waste of time. A waste of spare brain power, which I have less and less of every day.
“You owe me,” Katherine insists from the visitor side of the desk.
My eyebrows furrow. “How do you figure?”
“Who loaned you the money to build your dream?”
Katherine isn't the type to rub money in anyone's face unless it's to help her get something she wants more. She doesn't come from money, she breathes it. Most of it is family inherited, but she married into it as well. The money she tossed to me to build my dream job stopped her from buying another yacht. To her money is just an object, but unlike others with that kind of wealth, she's typically a good person. She doesn't insist on the entire world knowing just how much cash she shells out at every turn of the corner.
“I gave it back.”
“Not the point,” she states pushing her recently caramel colored hair behind her ear. “I did you a favor in your time of need, your turn.”
Time of need is right. The few banks I had contacted in regards to a loan laughed in my face. It's not like my credit was terrible or even like I didn't have potential. My idea was golden. Child care facilities often made back thousands, what I was proposing would make millions. Katherine knew she was making a wise investment. There are plenty of day cares and private elementary schools, but private preschools geared towards those with more money to throw into their child's education from an early stand point are rare. Places that offer your children painting classes by those with degrees in it, musical classes by the future composers of our time, gourmet kid friendly meals were basically
non-existent. I've created a private school that shows remarkable results as early as six months, lasting impressions from those enrolled in the after school program which stops at eight years old, as well as found a way for those who are going to school for Early Child Education and the Arts to have a steady job in their field. I've made quite a name for myself in the last few years. That name should be enough for me. But I know it isn't.
Folding my hands in my lap I scrunch my face. “Time of need? Really? Aren't you being a bit dramatic?”
She rolls her eyes. “It is a need, Presley. My publisher thinks this is an award winning idea. I need one more case to prove a couple of theories. I swear, I won't use your real name. I'll call you...Prudence.”
“I am not a prude.”